


Perchance to Dream

by Lhugy_for_short



Series: Lhugy's Giveaway Round 2 [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Dream Magic AU, Even Regis, Everyone lives, Happy Ending, M/M, Meta, Non-Explicit Sex, OT4, Tagged for underage but Noct is 17, idek how to tag this lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 13:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13459008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lhugy_for_short/pseuds/Lhugy_for_short
Summary: All children are born with incredible imaginations, and the ability to create entire worlds inside their dreams. But for one boy, it's impossible to see where the real world stops and his dreams begin.





	Perchance to Dream

**Author's Note:**

> This is another giveaway fic! This time for Themaddmansdaughter on Tumblr, who requested "anything OT4 + smut"  
> Well, I'm sure you weren't expecting whatever meta weirdness this turned out to be, but I hope you enjoy it anyway xD It also isn't as smutty as it could be, but I guess the theme is to use your imagination? Lol or something I don't even know what happened here forgive meeee....

The dream magic started when he was a child. 

He didn’t know then that it was unusual, that it was something to be kept hidden, secret. He didn’t know that it set him apart from the other kids, made him  _ different _ so that no one wanted to play with him. He didn’t understand why his father looked so sad when he told him about Carbuncle, or the funny doll-like moogles, that had visited him in his dreams. They were his friends - shouldn’t that make father happy?

It wasn’t until he was taken to the first doctor that Noctis realized his mistake. What the shrink called ‘ _ hallucinations’  _ were as real as flesh and blood to him, but it was clear that convincing the world of that would be a daunting task. Even sitting there in the severely-decorated office, with Carbuncle perched on the desk between them calmly licking his paw, the doctor dismissed his claims with little more than a thin smile. 

Everything suddenly made sense. 

_ No one else could see them.  _

Not his father, not the other kids at school. No wonder they had all looked at him so strange when he’d brought one of his favorite cactuars for show and tell! The thought made Noctis laugh uncontrollably, and in that he was different, as well. Whereas most children might have been mortified to know the truth, Noct saw in it a golden opportunity - a secret magic. A whole world built just for him in his dreams.

Friends who would never have to leave him. 

It took him time to perfect his art. Usually, the images of the creatures that came to him in sleep were fanciful, unlike the  _ ‘real’ _ animals he saw in zoos or in his picture books. They were sometimes silly, like the oversized chicken-like birds he’d taken to calling “Chocobos.” Sometimes they were frightening, like the demons he dreamt up in his darkest nightmares. But none of them had yet to be anywhere close to human. 

Night after night, Noctis practiced. He kept a journal. He read stories about others his age, and slowly developed an image of his ideal ‘friend’ - bright, playful, creative. Someone who would listen, and someone who would like the same comics. Someone to laugh with, or cry with, or simply hug him when he needed to be hugged. These were the qualities he chose, and the vision began to take shape. 

Prompto visited him in his dreams that night. A short boy, rounder than him but with a smile as bright as his hair and freckles like stars on his cheeks. Noctis loved him instantly. 

Time passed. Though he knew better than to speak of Prompto’s presence aloud, the two boys were absolutely inseparable. They attended school together (Noct nearly got caught more times than he wanted to admit laughing at Prompto’s antics); they slept together, hand in hand under the sheets of Noct’s bed (or sometimes in a pillow fort when his father allowed it); and they grew together. As the months turned to years, both of them grew taller, shed the soft edges of youth in favor of long limbs and sharper smiles. Through it all, Prompto was a constant like nothing else in his life had ever been. 

Then, one day, his father got sick. 

It was chronic, they’d said, degenerative and debilitating. The news devastated Noctis, who understood for the first time that real life was fragile, unable to be controlled or manipulated like the world he could create in his dreams. As his father lay dying in a hospitable bed, Noct returned home feeling very much like the lost, helpless child he was certain he’d always been. 

And that night, he met Gladiolus. 

He was older by a few years, already tall and filled out with muscles that spoke of dedication, strength, protection. When Gladio wrapped him in those powerful arms, the dams inside him broke. Noct cried in his dreams for the first time, let his emotions flood out of him like so much weight as he was held, lifted up, carried away from the pain. 

When he woke up in the morning, Gladio was there with him, a solid force against his right side while Prompto still clung to his left. And between the two of them, Noct felt...happy. Safe. He’d made two friends now, and they were both of them perfect. 

But time seemed to be slipping through his fingers. He father recovered, came home for a while, relapsed. High school presented new challenges, a busier schedule, less time for play. Prompto and Gladio didn’t join him in classes every day anymore, but they had each other and that was fine. Fine, because they still met him when he got off the bus after school, and because they still held him close at night. His bed, of course, was getting too small for the three of them, especially with Gladio’s massive frame, and the tight quarters were started to become... _ problematic _ .

Noct’s friends might have been born of magic, but their bodies were real enough. As was his own. One such night, with Prompto’s legs tangled up in his and Gladio’s broad hands hot through his sleep pants, it was impossible for Noct to avoid the inevitable. After nearly half an hour of enduring in silence, he finally had to squirm his way out of the bed with the excuse of needing some space. 

The sofa wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but at least his hand could work its magic beneath his clothes in privacy. Spent, sticky, but suddenly too tired to care, Noct rolled onto his side against the cushions and fell into a deep sleep. 

A man was waiting for him. Young, but surprisingly mature, and breathtakingly handsome. He wore simple clothes and glasses, yet behind the lenses his eyes shone with a fiery green spark. They were what pulled Noctis in, had him shivering with anticipation as the man’s gloved fingers stroked over his cheek, his neck, followed a moment later by his molten lips. 

_ Ignis _ , the man said when asked his name, and then Noct was pulling his mouth back down to meet his. 

It was his first kiss. Fitting that it, too, should come from his dreams. 

Prompto and Gladio found him like that that next morning - splayed out on the couch with Ignis asleep atop his chest, clothes disheveled and fingers buried in dark and chestnut hair alike. 

Talks were had. 

Noct explained that all three of them were special to him: Prompto, his first companion; Gladio, his first shield; and Ignis, his first awakening. He loved them all equally, and while they would definitely have to consider the sleeping arrangements (or simply all pile together on the floor), he was determined to make this work. 

Ignis adjusted his glasses with a secretive smile. 

Gladio glanced at Prompto, cleared his throat, and nodded. 

Prompto looked at the other two, flushed bright red, and added that he could probably fit in someone’s lap. If, y’know, they ran out of space. 

And so it was settled. Life didn’t get any easier, but with his three closest friends at his side it was at least more bearable. Time strengthened their bonds in ways he never could have imagined, and as the dynamics changed, so did the role each of them played in his heart. After school, for example, he could count on Prompto to meet him at the arcade. But rather than hours of Justice Monsters like they’d done in the past, they’d climb into the virtual reality booth and make out instead. 

Or Gladio, who still woke him up sometimes for morning runs, but who now rewarded him at the end by joining him in the shower. 

And Ignis. He’d represented desire in Noct’s life since they’d first met, but now he held nothing back. He was just as likely to greet Noct at the door with flowers and chocolate cake as he was to pin him to the mattress, peel off his clothing piece by piece, and blow him out of his mind. 

Things didn't stop there, either. Noct was pleased to open his door one day to see a tangled mass of limbs in his bed, flashes of pale skin against dark, and bright red lighting up Prompto’s freckled cheeks above his smile. There was only one thing to do about it, obviously - strip down to his boxers and throw himself into bed with them. 

It never bothered Noctis - or his three dream boyfriends - that no one else could see them. He was happy, and they were happy, and that was enough. Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis were with him through the worst and best of times, never asking for anything in return but to love and be loved as they had always been. At least, until the eve of Noct’s nineteenth birthday when Ignis approached him with a dreadful question. 

“What do you intend to do with your future?” 

Right away, Noctis understood what he meant. His father was ill, more often in the hospital than out these days, and that made the only Lucis Caelum left to carry on the family name. He also had no job, and since graduating high school had made no effort to even consider the prospect of university. While he wasn’t a child anymore, he also hadn’t yet blossomed into adulthood; stuck somewhere between the two in a limbo of uncertainty. 

Of course, the exact concern had crossed his mind more times than he cared to admit. And each time, he’d put it out of his thoughts, pushed it back again because the weight of it frightened him. He knew that everyone was meant to grow out of their ‘ _ imaginary friends’ _ with time, yet his were more than real - they were as much a part of him as his own blood.

Ignis, it seemed, could read his silence. He held Noctis in his arms as he spoke the truth that none of them wanted to hear. “We can’t stay like this forever, my love. You must make a choice.”

_ Us, or the real world.  _

_ Your future, or your past.  _

For Noctis, the choice seemed obvious; after all, the real world had never quite suited him anyway. 

And so he began to make a plan, one which he practiced and constructed in secret while he slept. Reworked the foundations of the world he’d started to build when he was young, much younger, using the magic of his dreams. In it, he designed a castle, with grand towers and spiraling stairs, and a throne made of velvet and gold. He created an entire city around it, not unlike the real one in which he lived, but filled with music, exotic people, and fantastic beasts. 

It took him months, but at last this new world -  _ his world _ \- was complete. All that was left was to send himself into it. 

Theoretically, it seemed possible. After all, if creatures and people could come  _ out  _ of his dreams, then there had to be a way to travel  _ into  _ them, as well. Perhaps he could build a vision of himself there, and send his soul into it; or maybe he could step through the barrier just like stepping through a doorway, assuming he could find the key. Noct turned the ideas over in his mind one but one, yet even after several weeks he still hadn’t come any closer to solving the mystery. 

Then, unexpectedly, the answer came in the form of the simplest of acts. 

Prompto, who had always had the uncanny ability to read Noct’s emotions, had surprised him one evening with a romantic bath for two. Complete with bubbles, candles, and even music playing from Noct’s phone by the sink, the blond grinned as he helped them both undress. A sweet kiss set the mood, and then Prompto was climbing into the tub first. “‘ _ Come with me if you want to live, _ ’” he quoted cheesily, and held out his hand for Noctis to clasp. 

And it hit him. 

_ Of course! _ The answer was so simple! The hand, an opening. Prom, Iggy, Gladio -  _ they _ were his keys to the other side, just as he had been theirs to enter into the real world. Noct laughed, relief flooding him, and kissed Prompto senseless as they sank down together into the warm, bubbly water. 

His plan was set. There was only one thing left to do. 

Visiting hours were long over by the time the four of them snuck into the terminal ward of the hospital. Regis lay asleep in his bed, far too thin and frail, and yet when he awoke to see his son’s face, he smiled. “Noctis. It’s late, what is it? Has something happened?” 

Behind him, Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis laced their hands.

Noct kneeled down at his father’s side. “I want to show you something, Dad. Something amazing. Will you come with us?” 

“Us?” 

“Close your eyes.” 

Taking his father’s hand in his own, Noct turned to his lovers and nodded. One by one, they joined themselves to him, arms around his frame or lips in his hair, and he closed his eyes in the warmth that surrounded them all. He drifted - still awake and yet the pull of dreams called to him. In the familiar darkness, he could make out the weight of Gladio, Prompto, Ignis, and his father, too, all connected by a common thread as they traveled far, far away. Toward the city he’d built, and the castle which he now envisioned coming into view before them. Right up to the throne room, where his father opened his eyes and gasped aloud at the majesty of it all. 

They had arrived. 

This was their world now. A world of dreams, of fantasy, of freedom. 

Carbuncle dashed out from under his feet to curl up cat-like on the seat of the throne, and Regis laughed. “Well, I’ll be! Just as you described him,” he said, and turned to Noct with a bewildered smile. “Who are your friends?” 

Hands still clasped, Noct introduced Ignis, Prompto, and Gladio to his father, proudly showing them off for the first time since they’d come into his life. 

And from that day on, he ruled over the kingdom of his dreams as a benevolent prince. Not yet a king, but perhaps, in time, he would grow to be.

 


End file.
